Mr Suga reiterated Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s refusal not to revise an infamous 1993 semi-apology, saying that evaluation of the historical evidence should be left to historians and scholars.

“Japan’s relations with South Korea are extremely important and we will try to explain this issue to gain understanding,” he said.

However, South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman Noh Kwang Il said: “The Japanese government should clearly know that action that again picks on the painful wound of the victims will never be forgiven by the international community.”

For instance, in the present Japanese government, there is Taro Aso, “the scion of a family whose mining company used Korean forced laborers during Japan’s 1910-1945 occupation of the Korean peninsula”. See